Ideas for the Apple iPad in post-production

With Apple’s announcement of the iPad there’s been tons of articles, tweets and blog posts about this upcoming piece of hardware. There’s also been tons of ink spilled about just how this little device could be useful in the filmmaking process as well, some right here on this site. I had decided not to write anything at all about the iPad since pretty much everything had already been said. But I got to thinking how this device might integrate more with the post-production side of the filmmaking process while on a flight the other day ... so I made some notes.

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Adobe Community Leaders Summit

Last week, Adobe invited a variety of well-known people in the industry to come get a closer look at what they’ve been working on, and to provide feedback on their direction. To Adobe’s credit, this was no “preaching to the choir” session; many of those invited were FCP and Avid editors, and several current users gave Adobe personnel an earful both publicly and privately. It was also made clear to us that no specific product versions or release dates were being discussed, and that we couldn’t repeat anything that had not already been mentioned publicly (reminds us of the old Zen Buddhist saying “Those who know don’t say; those who say don’t know"). However, this event gives us an excuse… more »

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Canon is a Battleship, Red is a Destroyer

There’s been a lot of speculation on the new camcorder that Canon is revealing today at the SF SuperMeet. Some (myself included) have been hoping wistfully for a proper camcorder body and controls wrapped around a DSLR sensor, perhaps APS-C sized, with an interchangeable lens mount for common Canon L-series lenses. Well, pictures of what appears to be this new camera model are out, and it seems that we are fools for dreaming. Read on…

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WOW! Here’s why to go cheap/fast/light!

I saw this and had a big surge of “And THAT, M-Fers, is why I got into HD for Indies in the first place!!!! An F900 can SUCK IT!”

What we have here are two skimboarders (OK OK I cheated in the headline sub - skimboarders is long/complex/weaker than surfer) with a cheapie GoPro camera....on a broomstick. What happens when you hold up a lightweight, waterproof, wide angle lensed camera on a pole looking back at you while you do sports? Fun stuff! Video after the jump.

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Daily Inspiration - Nuit Blanche

What do you get when you mix a unique story concept with unearthly special effects and a stirring soundtrack? You get this stunning dose of filmmaking inspiration…

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Doing Digital Design

Robert Stromberg was always a designer of environments. He grew up learning how to do matte paintings from his father’s friend—a young Phil Tippett—while making little films in his garage. He later became a successful matte painter, working with industry notables like Albert Whitlock and Syd Dutton, among others. But eventually, his professional career moved him toward the world of digital effects for features, and he became a visual effects’ supervisor with his own company, called Digital Backlot. Then, in 2004, Stromberg earned an Academy Award nomination in the visual effects’ category (along with three others) as the visual effects’ designer on Peter Weir’s “Master… more »

Deeper Modes of Expression, Part 2: Interpolation Methods

As we noted last month, we’re serializing the Deeper Modes of Expression bonus chapter from our book Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects into a set of 12 posts here on PVC. As February is the shortest month, perhaps it’s appropriate that this us the shortest installment - but we also consider this to be one of the most important, core techniques offered by expressions: A quick and easy way to convert one range of numbers to another.

Now you can SEE in HD

I remember seeing this on late night tv, in a 30 minute infomercial. I thought ... that would make a great blog post for those who haven’t seen it! There’s nothing the late night tv marketers won’t do to sell a product.

Hit the jump to check it out.

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Quicktip: Identify FCP filter in the timeline

One question I hear often is asking if there is a way to tell what filters are applied to a clip by looking at the clip in the Final Cut Pro timeline. The answer is yes. You must first turn on the Toggle Clip Keyframes button in the lower right corner of the timeline, or use the keyboard shortcut Option + T:

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Motion and Transparency

I see a lot of questions on the forums about Motion and transparency - primarily when folks try to export a movie from Motion to place over a video clip in Final Cut Pro. Here’s a few things to check, to watch out for, and a suggested workflow to make everything play nicely together.

Color Matching in Motion

Motion graphics artists frequently need to match colors of design elements to colors of imported graphics, such as corporate logos. If you’ve tried to do this in Motion, you may have discovered a slight mismatch in the colors, which is frankly unacceptable. Here’s a short video demonstrating the issue and a way to fix it.

Vimeo finally goes mobile + adds 1080p and HTML5 (ßeta)

Vimeo, a leading video hosting/gallery site offering both paid and free models, has finally added mobile capability for its paying clients. This capability finally allows Vimeo Plus members to make their videos compatible with mobile devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch, Palm Pre, and Google/Android devices like the Nexus One. Vimeo Plus members can also now have the option to have web-based 1080p videos (although the wisdom of that today is debatable). Finally, all videos on Vimeo —whether from Plus members or standard members— will now have the option to be viewed either with the new HTML5 (ßeta) player (browser dependent), or the pre-existing Flash player… more »